The cabin compartment is the innermost area within the surrounding aluminum shell of the conventional aircraft fuselage. In flight, the aluminum shell is subject to extreme changes of temperature. To maintain a comfortable environment in the inhabited cabin compartment, a fuel efficient aircraft requires that the cabin compartment be substantially surrounded by thermal and acoustic insulating systems. Prior art insulation systems have been known to accumulate and retain hundreds of pounds of condensed moisture in flight. Such moisture saturated insulation blankets are ineffective insulators and detract from the fuel and payload efficiency of the aircraft. Existing thermal acoustic insulation in commercial transports is a labor intensive (fabrication and installation), multi-material assembly that has chronic problems with installation and water retention in service. Current thermal acoustic insulation for the airplane fuselage consists of multiple layers of fiberglass enclosed in a fabricated Mylar® bag. The construction of the insulation blankets is not consistent across airplane models with variations in film thickness, color, and fiberglass type. While the locations of related variations associated with different acoustic demands is a significant factor, the installation related variations due to provisioning have resulted in a high part count and significant efforts in developing configuration management scenarios to cope with the complexity.
Accordingly, all aircraft fuselage insulation blankets heretofore known suffer from a number of disadvantages: (a) Moisture vapor condensate tends to form on the blanket interior surfaces in flight. Insulation materials become matted down, wet and lose their loft, thickness and effective insulating properties. (b) Moisture vapor condensate is retained in the fibrous capillaries and yarn interstices of the conventional blanket's textile reinforcement. (c) The typical prior art blanket is not durable when subjected to actual flight conditions, including cycles of cold, heat, humidity, pressure, and unpredictable episodes of high altitude cosmic radiation over a period of time. The moisture barrier film and the adhesive or hardenable resinous material, particularly polyester type resinous materials and polyethyleneterepthalate film, can degrade, become brittle and the blankets-break open. (d) Sewn seams and thread bound projecting bundles of fibrous insulation wick moisture into the blanket. The remedial pressure sensitive adhesive tape, used to cover the stitches of sewn blanket seams, is too heavy and costly. Such taping adds weight and decreases the aircraft's payload capacity and fuel efficiency. (e) The prior art insulation blankets, when not sewn, require encasement materials having an added volume and weight of costly thermoplastic resinous material to improve heat sealability of seams. (f) The vents of prior art insulating blanket casings allow ingress of moisture laden air. (g) Such prior art insulation blankets are costly, occupy fuselage space, add weight, reduce payload capacity and, when dry, have a function limited to insulation and passenger comfort.
The zip-lock method of insulating the fuselage solves the moisture retention problem and reduces product weight and installation time and the quantity of Mylar® used to encapsulate the fiberglass material.